Authors: Amber Scott
Tir Conaill, Ireland 1315
“Quiet, Finn. I canno’ hear with all your purring.” Breanne pressed her ear back against the gap between the heavy door and the stone wall. She swore the cat was doing it apurpose, goading her into leaving. He did not quiet, so she barely heard the voices discussing her future.
Finn licked his chest, ignoring her, but at least he remained in his wood floor seat this morn. Nearly every other one for the last fortnight they’d come to her mother’s chamber door to listen. And each became a waste when Finn grew restless and left, forcing her after him empty- handed. Her mother’s only rule of tolerance for the large cat taking residence with them was that he never be left on his own, a sure opportunity for mischief and destruction.
Today he stayed, and Breanne’s ever patient eavesdropping sounded as though it might bear fruit. For once, her instincts might prove accurate.
“I see no reason to press her,” her mother, Ula, said.
“She is well past a marrying age. Good men have asked for her hand. I am running out of excuses to give them.”
Breanne O’Donnell strained to hear her mother come to her defense. Soon, Niall would be Ula’s husband and have fatherly authority over Breanne. For now, he spoke merely as guardian and chieftain.
Ula replied softly but clearly. “She is interested in her studies and has only half completed her apprenticeship with Heremon. Allow her two more years to completion. Then, I promise, we’ll see her settled.”
“Two more years? She’s seen nineteen already,” Niall said, his voice rising. “You encourage the lass too much. Following the old ways puts her at risk.”
Breanne winced, but pressed her ear closer, careful not to breathe so loudly. It was worse than she’d feared.
“But, she may not be able to tell a husband of her training and I can’t deny her Ovate status, not when she’s so close. Even Heremon has come to agree it is her calling.”
“She is a healer. It is well known that Heremon is tutoring her in herbs and tonics. Why shouldn’t a husband be aware of the same? Dinna’ forget, there is her inheritance to be seen to.” Niall’s voice rose to a bellow.
Breanne pulled her head away a moment. She chewed her lip, knotted a strand of strawberry blonde hair around her finger. Her stomach clenched at the memory of her childhood home, left so many years ago.
“The keep is hers to do with as she will. Why not discuss the property with her instead? Mayhap she will rent it or even take residence in it, taking a guard along to protect it.”
“A husband will protect her.”
She would protect herself. Were she born a few hundred years before, she’d be allowed a hermit’s life if she wished. She’d be allowed to fight as a warrior, though she’d never choose to. The damned English Pale seemed to be influencing even their own northern tuath nowadays. Before long it might spread across the Giant’s Causeway to encroach the Highland clans.
“Ula, she’s been asked for again. If I excuse her unmarried state much longer, people will think me soft or worse of her.”
Breanne wanted to walk in and demand answers. Who had asked? Quinlan? Another? When had she been asked for?
“I don’t want to force her. She is no princess. Her marriage will not end a war or cause one. She should choose. And let them talk.”
Breanne silently thanked Ula. Her mother was the only one she had to stand up for her, and she was doing it well. Being stubborn went against her mother’s demure and nurturing nature, so her firm words bespoke the issue’s importance to her, as well.
There was a moment of silence. All she could hear was her heart thumping hard enough that her throat quivered. “Shane Ferguson is a good man, comes from a good family. A husband will give her a family, Ula.” His voice became softer. “And allow us one, as well.”
Finn’s tail swatted her skirt, shushing across the floor, leaving her unsure she’d heard the last of it right. She couldn’t have. Her mother was no longer young and though she bore Breanne at sixteen years, nineteen were certainly too many years for a womb to wait.
And allow us
fun
, as well?
Some
, as well? She searched her brain for a suitable word to make sense of what she couldn’t have heard correctly.
Alarm shot through her at the light tap of footsteps coming up the wooden stairway. She could not remain there. Besides, Heremon surely awaited her in the grove. If she arrived late again, she’d be punished with another deplorable jar dusting.
Five long years of study and she was finally nearing the topics that had sparked her ask to become an Ovate within the nigh extinct order. The Druid master didn’t like waiting and though her mother hadn’t finalized the decision, Breanne could not risk lingering.
She stood summarily, scooping Finn up with her, and shot down the hallway to the stairs. Few men lingered in the main hall, most busy outside practicing in arms, but of all of them, Quinlan was the last she likened to see. Reaching the bottom stair, Breanne scowled and lifted her chin, continuing her fast pace, hoping to look unapproachable.
She failed. Quinlan’s face lit up upon seeing her and he stepped in pace beside her. She glanced sideways and forced a small smile on her face. His smile grew and lit up his face. “I’ve been looking for you, Breanne. I thought you might enjoy an afternoon ride.”
“I canno’,” she said faster than she intended. He was so handsome he was nearly pretty with his copper brown hair and bright blue eyes. “I have preparations for the wedding to attend to,” she lied. Not only were her lessons to be kept private, she feared he would offer to escort her. She had absolutely no romantic interest in him. Not anymore.
“These are for you,” Quinlan said, suddenly in front of her and shoving a handful of lavender and heather to her nose, forcing her to stop.
Breanne’s mouth fell open to speak, but she found she could barely breathe. They were lovely, the very kind of bouquet she’d picked as a girl to bestow upon herself, pretending they were from him. Suddenly her childhood dreams of becoming Quinlan’s wife took on a sickening feeling.
“Thank you,” she said. She smiled weakly and inhaled their scent. She didn’t want to hurt him. She searched his eyes, didn’t want to see them filled with pain at her rejection.
He smiled, showing even white teeth, and her stomach grew more sickly. He was handsomer than St. Kevin himself.
How could one simple kiss change so much? She hated the question and the truth of it even more. One kiss that she’d dreamed of she would now remove from existence, uncast, were she able. The memory of it only worsened her urgency to leave him.
Thankfully, they were in plain sight of others in the hall, assuring he couldn’t kiss her again. It was bad enough that most were snickering and cooing over the obvious sign of courtship.
Quinlan stared at her a long awkward moment until she gestured past him. His face flooded with color. He stepped out of her way, coughing into his fist. She glanced uncomfortably away, no words coming to her, and gave up the effort. What could she possibly tell him to ease such palpable tension between them?
She ignored the pang in her chest at his crestfallen face, held Finn a bit tighter and left through the kitchen. Outside in the crisp spring air, Breanne slipped through the postern in the fortress yard, confident none saw her exit the small gate.
The lightness her escape of the bailey walls typically offered her didn’t come. The unusually sunny spring day was perfect for a ride. Or for a walk. Alone. If she hurried, she could reach the grove in time.
She wore a green cape attached at the shoulders of her lighter green gown to help blend and disguise her rushing form. She’d made the steep walk in worse weather, with less time to spare, and feeling less harried than she felt now. A funny nagging feeling in her belly seemed to grow with each step.
“A husband. The last thing I need now is a husband. Who could I possibly marry, let alone why?” she asked Finn through panting breath.
“Quinlan appears to be ready for the call of that duty,” Finn answered, the lisp of his feline mouth coating an extra layer of sarcasm. Once away from the keep, Finn made up for his forced quiet by having opinions and sharing them at every opportunity.
“You are a vile beast,” Breanne said and dropped the enchanted cat inherited with her third year of lessons.
He landed expertly and trotted after her. “He’s perfectly enamored with you. Anyone can see that.” Finn’s tone brimmed with gloating sarcasm.
“Oh? Even besotted, enchanted cats?” Breanne kicked a rock his way, knowing it would miss. She hated how right Finn was.
“France did well by him, I think,” Finn said. “He’s gotten some pluck since he returned.”
She’d hardly name the silly doe-eyed look as pluck. But, it seemed the only one Quinlan bestowed on her since his autumn return from six years abroad. Finn kept in stride with her, pouncing from rock to grassy dirt with springy ease.
“And what would you know about it?”
She knelt at a bush and retrieved the chalice hidden there. Setting the bundle of flowers down, she bent over the stream and captured water into it. Its encrusted rubies and sapphires warmed and brightened in the sunlight.
“You’re not my first mistress,” Finn said, teetering on a rock to dip his mouth to the water. “Do recall that I did exist long before you came into my life.”
Breanne resisted the strong urge to push him in.
“Pluck. I would have used a more explicit word, myself.” They’d each grown up during the six years and apparently his feelings for her were now adult in nature. “Brute comes to mind.”
Not a fortnight ago, he’d cornered her outside her chamber and kissed her soundly, pressing into her. His attraction was more than obvious, stabbing her hip. Although a curt slap had ended his assault, it had done little to dissuade him since.
“Mayhap he’ll ask for you.”
“Bite your tongue. I would rather marry you.”
“How terribly flattering. But, not possible since you cannot see fit to lift the curse, and after last night’s miserable failure, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”
Breanne ignored the jab and his sour tone. She told herself again that she had so much more to learn, that it was still early to be expecting the kind of magick he needed to come readily. As Heremon always told her, magick takes more than talent. It takes persistence and study and practice, practice, practice.
“Hush now, you old lecher, we need to focus,” she said.
If a cat could roll its eyes, Finn nearly did, but quieted nonetheless. Craggy hillside met lush valley, carpeted with heather and grass. The gurgle of water grew louder. The grove lay ahead. Breanne paused at the base and breathed in a gulp of air to clear her head. If she joined Heremon preoccupied with Quinlan or the conversation between her mother and Niall, he might send her right back where she came from.
Likely, Finn was saving the rest of his teasing for the jaunt home, as usual.
Breanne exhaled, filling her heart with love and asked the goddess and ancestors for a blessing. She thanked the land and trees and asked for their welcome.
Spring leaves shivered under the cool answering breeze and the two entered the grove in silence. The trees and bushes blocked out the cool air and warm light, giving way to a dim comfort. The place never lost its spell on her. Any doubts that ever grew about her choosing this path in life shrank away here.
She approached the largest oak and knelt before it, spilling the water out of the chalice onto its roots with a silent prayer. Finn licked himself, lapping loudly. Breanne finished her offering and glared at her companion.
“For a victim of curse,” she said. “You are certainly more and more insolent. Is it so much trouble to be reverent toward that which will aid your release?”
Finn yawned.
Breanne shook her head and continued to Heremon’s altar. The old Druid stood with his eyes closed and his face tilted skyward, one hand on the large stone slab. Seven white candles’ flames lit the small clearing. Heremon’s dull athame lay at rest, on a folded red wool square, with the white handle pointing south, blade north.
Breanne sat before him and waited for acknowledgement. Finn trotted after a flitting object that she hoped wasn’t a fairy. Of all the magick this grove held, a fairy would be the best to see true. All things secret, Heremon promised, would reveal themselves in time. With less than two years remaining in her tutelage, she couldn’t see why all the things she worked for still failed to happen.
“We have much work to do,” Heremon said and joined her on the mossy forest floor. “I have received the prophecy and we must prepare. A stranger will join us, become one of us.”
His pale eyes bounced as he spoke. Was he still in a trance? Her cleared head flooded with unease.
Breanne watched and waited for him to continue. Her stomach tightened up with the same sick feeling from before when she had listened in shadows to Niall O’Donnell’s words.
A husband will protect her.
She would protect herself.
“He is yours to keep,” Heremon said. “See the emeralds, know the key.”
Breanne’s mind halted. Her heart skipped. She knew better than to read the literal into any vision’s meaning, but several ideas formed in her head unbidden. Surely, his words could not be linked to Niall’s.
Heremon had assured her that once she began seeing, she would better understand the nature of second sight and that it in fact made the future less clear than before. But, how could foreknowledge not help in life? She hoped to soon know the truth for herself.
“Tell no one.” Heremon’s hands shot out, clenched her knees. She moved back, startled. His eyes danced, looking through her. “Protect him.”
Another presage, or did the first continue? Protect what? It would be pointless to ask as he would not recall his words. He never did. By the look of his eyes, it wouldn’t be long. The cloudiness in them receded, the shaking slowed. Within a moment, Heremon’s irises returned to dark green and focused on her face, adjusting to the light.
“Breanne.” He blinked at her with surprise. “When did you arrive?” He let go of her knees as though they’d not been touched at all.